Are any of these characters depicting any sort of human emotion? Filmmation must have had a pessimistic and uber-realist view of humanity that thought of us as little more than organic robots. Their work promotes nihilism and a bleak view of the future.

I love Filmation cartoons. Period. That studio produced some of the most technically well drawn pieces of animation and wonderful draftsmanship, often superior to whatever talentless hacks including Disney, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, the Fleischers, and their ilk produced and accomplished within less than a decade, despite the seemingly stiff drawings, constant reuse of animation, and dialog that's so good, it makes you wanna cry for joy.

Filmation took us out of the dark ages of animation with their imaginative creativity. I'm happy that their cartoons still influence us today, especially with feature films and even modern TV animation. We need to go copy every single one of these framegrabs and analyze them, so we can make cartoons just like the draftsmen at Filmation did. Forget about "cartoonists" Harvey Kurtzman and Milt Gross too. All they ever drew were imitation cartoons. Now these are what cartoons should look like now and for the end of time. These are the real thing.

In fact, Filmation cartoons are so great, that the great Lou Scheimer even wrote a history book about the studio he helped to create. John, and everybody, go out and buy this book and hear from a real creative fellow, who has accomplished so much more than what those guys with broken fingers accomplished in the 1930s and 1940s.

there were so many filmations shows on saturday mornings when i was a kid that i actually attempted to draw like them.i would sit in the back of my class with my notebook,and in the margins attempt to do their version of tarzan or rick springfield, bell bottom pants and all. i thought that was the only way to draw, then i started really getting into people like jack kirby and e.c segar and walt kelly, segar and kelly had softer more rounded imagery, kirby was explosively physical and dramatic, i soon forgot all about filmation,but i did master their style! it was easy! it wasnt until i was in my late teens that i realized what a bad influence they had, it was all generic,the hardy boys arent much different than gilligans island in their hands, tarzan looks like he-man,batman is the same as superman for filmation.im glad their reign as saturday morning kings finally ended, unfortunately the damage was done.

Back in my drinking days, I thought it was my hangover on a Saturday morning. I look at those cells, and realize, it was just the reality of Flemation-Oh, I mean Filmation.Not only were the cartoons bad, but the live action series were scary too! Like the one with James Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek). He didn't use his phony, accent. Then There were those shows with Johnathan Harris (Dr. Smith from Lost In Space). I know Filmation was your bread and butter back then, but knowing that cartoons were once glorious, and watching how they devolved was sad. Sorry. Sometime I get going and don't know when to stop. All and all, thanks for the rare look at those cells.

Wow. Lassie being bitten by that dog-head attached to a beanbag made me chuckle, but everything else has put me in a bad mood. There must've been at least one show from one series that someone snuck something creative and fun into. Otherwise there must've been a number of suicides.

Filmation basically burned all the money that could have gone into making a good cartoon. I think that is quite common now a days with low brow sitcoms such as Family Guy and The Simpsons or the gory, pornographic material you get out of Anime. Animation has been diverted from reaching its fullest potential and Flimation is the Gold standard at wasting money but there are many more.

Since you had to work at Flimation. Were the people forcing you to do these cartoons just as bland and uninspired as the cartoons themselves? It seems to me atleast that the personality of a person that makes the cartoon effects the cartoons quality.

Correct me if I'm wrong John, but some of those characters in the background look like they were drawn by Eddie Fitzgerald. A nice li'l look into the future of the drawing style of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.

Filmation cartoons truly are sad, reading the end credits to those shows, seeing the names of legends like Don Towsley, Orestes Calpini, Dave Tendlar, Bob Carlson, and Ambi Paliwoda, people who helped shape what great cartoons are supposed to be, makes me want to cry.

That's it. That type of animation is like the musical equivalent of the worst DJ ever, who samples some piece of a song and plays it over and over and over.

The only difference is, the DJ would usually take the most interesting part of the song to repeat, whereas these old animators seem to have taken the worst parts of animation and made it bland, and then repeated it until you cant watch it anymore.

Roberto, having not read the book you referred to but having grown up with Filmation products, and a great association with one former Disney artist that saved Filmation's HAPPILY EVER AFTER from crashing and burning, my question is:

What exactly makes Filmation "great"? Their BG's? Their live action model rotoscope (also used in HEAVY METAL and by Don Bluth)?

I actually used to enjoy Tarzan, and the Space Sentinels. They had adventures in colourful places like other planets, or the jungle, and there were dinosaurs and things. What's not to like about that? Astria could change into animals, Herc could lift giant rocks, and Merc could run really fast. I still remember the eagle shrieks, and loud thumpy steps of of the giant robots. I was about 6 or 7 at the time. I had a similar feeling of nostalgia for the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079474/ until recently, when I saw it and noticed how crappy the animation was, but that kind of thing didn't register with me as a six year old. I wonder if it kicks in at any particular time for kids in general.

"Animation is an imaginative medium, capable of anything you can dream up."

I agree! I don´t understand why animated films try so hard to be "realistic" while live action films (like "Hellboy", "Sin City", "300", "Watchmen" "The Fall" "Clash of the Titans" and all the hideous live action cartoons) try to hard to be "cartoony" and unrealistic. This is madness!

Filmation worked under budgets of practically nothing and under time constraints demanding delivery practically 'yesterday'.. If you genuinely expect them to experiment, play around, or produce high art, then you're expecting way too much.

Fact is that without Filmation there wouldnt be a lot of the super stuff being done these days, much less would we have Batman:The Animated Series by Bruce Timm, who was trained at Filmation.

As much as you like to think of animation as an artform, it's a business more than an art. It's job is to tell stories to it's audience, especially on low-budget television, not provide you with exaltant 'art'. If you want that, go to a museum.

"hc", that's not a good excuse, and it's another bad attempt to rationalise a defense for Filmation: a studio that didn't actually use "The Archies", or, Veronica and Reggie, that is, as their classic diva prima donna selves [like I';ve said, and even the crappy HB "Josie" series used teen Cruelle De Vil and that cat as their comic book villian selves, another poin that I've made before].

Did none other than...I.Takamoto do the Filmation designs? [his mid 60s HB designs were pleasant at best but they were just one-not the onlty, natch, but among the main hallmarks, or eyesores, of the eventual Hanna-Barbera waste.] Those fleshy eyes...yeeech...!!! 'Scpecially after seeing Archies, Superheroes and others on the printedpage before that late 60s and onward era.

Roberto Severino sayeth:" love Filmation cartoons. Period. That studio produced some of the most technically well drawn pieces of animation and wonderful draftsmanship, often superior to whatever talentless hacks including Disney, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, the Fleischers, and their ilk produced and accomplished within less than a decade, despite the seemingly stiff drawings, constant reuse of animation, and dialog that's so good, it makes you wanna cry for joy.

Filmation took us out of the dark ages of animation with their imaginative creativity. I'm happy that their cartoons still influence us today, especially with feature films and even modern TV animation. We need to go copy every single one of these framegrabs and analyze them, so we can make cartoons just like the draftsmen at Filmation did. Forget about "cartoonists" Harvey Kurtzman and Milt Gross too. All they ever drew were imitation cartoons. Now these are what cartoons should look like now and for the end of time. These are the real thing.

In fact, Filmation cartoons are so great, that the great Lou Scheimer even wrote a history book about the studio he helped to create. John, and everybody, go out and buy this book and hear from a real creative fellow, who has accomplished so much more than what those guys with broken fingers accomplished in the 1930s and 1940s."